To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP) announced winners of the Women Cycling Project photo and video contest during a free webinar on Women Cycling presented on March 30. A link to the webinar and the winning photos appears at www.womencyclingproject.info.

First place was awarded to an 8-minute video, Beauty and the Bike, produced by the Darlington Media Group of Darlington, England. This lively video is also a teaser for a 55-minute documentary film that follows two groups of young women (one from Darlington, the other from Bremen, Germany) who examine why teenage girls do or don’t cycle. It is available on YouTube via a link from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) video library. http://www.walkinginfo.org/videos/pubdetail.cfm?picid=39

Second, third, and fourth prizes were awarded to photographers Elly Blue (Portland, Ore., 2nd prize), Suzanne Nathan (Chicago, 3rd prize), and Shawn Turner (College Station,Tex., 4th prize) who offered their images of women and girls cycling to www.pedbikeimages.org, a public website established by the PBIC under contract to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Images on this site can be used with attribution and without charge in presentations, reports, and educational materials.

In choosing the winners, APBP selected entries that best advanced the goals of the Women Cycling Project – to encourage more women and girls to cycle for transportation. “We chose images that encourage cultural change. The video Beauty and the Bike demonstrates that some perceived barriers are easily overcome simply by starting to cycle with our peers; motorists and community leaders can help reduce or remove other barriers through rather modest actions,” said Executive Director Kit Keller.

Elly Blue’s three photographs show women enjoying cycling in Portland, Ore., a U.S. city that has invested in becoming more bicycle-friendly. Suzanne Nathan’s two photographs from Chicago demonstrate that girls and women of all ages and all cultural backgrounds can bicycle. Shawn Turner’s photo portrays cycling as an everyday occurrence in Bremen, Germany, a world class community. Interestingly, a portion of Beauty and the Bike was filmed in Bremen, Germany when the girls from Darlington visited Bremen to find out why girls there biked more places more often.

“Today, one sees more women cycling. We notice images of women cycling in fashion, advertising and entertainment. It isn’t just a passing fancy. The free webinars and reports of the Women Cycling Project (www.womencyclingproject.info) can help communities and groups create conversations and stir bicycle-friendly change,” Keller added.

APBP launched the Women Cycling Project to identify why fewer women and girls cycle for transportation in the U.S. and Canada and to collect existing best practices communities employ to encourage more women and girls to cycle. The project grew out of recommendations made in Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility in Europe which can be found at http://www.international.fhwa.dot.gov/pubs/pl10010/pl10010.pdf and a curiosity to learn why fewer women than men cycle in the U.S.

Although the contest has closed, APBP encourages anyone interested in contributing their photos of women and girls cycling for transportation to visit www.pedbikeimages.org. “We especially need images of women and girls of all ages, races, and ethnicities so that more people can imagine themselves cycling by seeing their peers enjoy cycling for transportation.”

Prizes were 12 apbp webinars (first prize, a value of $900), registration to the 2011 apbp Professional Development Seminar in Charlotte, NC (second prize, a value of $350), membership in apbp (third prize valued at $95), and one free apbp webinar (fourth prize, valued at $50).

About APBP
APBP is the only professional membership organization for the discipline of pedestrian and bicycle transportation. APBP’s 1,000 members include leaders in engineering, planning, landscape architecture, safety, public health, Safe Routes to School and promotion. The association also welcomes academics, students and professional advocates. Learn more at www.apbp.org .

APBP’s monthly webinar program cover issues related to bicycling and walking that are of interest to professionals working in the field and are presented on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The webinars, recorded and made available to view later, are designed to encourage professionals, groups, and government to build transportation teams by learning and talking together.

For online news media, the links for each of the winning entries appear below.